1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) communication, and particularly, to an apparatus and method for providing service connectivity for Wi-Fi Direct communication.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical Wi-Fi network is deployed with control equipment known as wireless Access Points (APs), i.e., Base Stations (BSs) or hot spots. The wireless APs provide service provisioning involving physical support for wired and wireless networks, bridging and routing between network equipment, and connection and release of the connection between network equipment.
Wi-Fi Direct is a technology for enabling direct communication between Wi-Fi terminals without intervention of Wi-Fi APs that support connections between Wi-Fi terminals. A Wi-Fi terminal discovers a peer Wi-Fi terminal by device discovery and detects an intended service type by service discovery, thereby establishing a connection for Wi-Fi Direct communication with the peer Wi-Fi terminal.
According to the state of the art as described above, after device discovery, the Wi-Fi terminal may determine whether the discovered peer Wi-Fi terminal supports a specific service by service discovery, for Wi-Fi Direct communication. The service discovery only supports acquisition of information about service types supported by the peer Wi-Fi terminal. Therefore, even though the transmitting terminal acquires information about the services supported by the receiving terminal, it does not have knowledge of the receiving terminal's intention as to whether it will receive a specific file from the transmitting terminal.
After allowing a device connection with the transmitting terminal, the receiving terminal does not know information (e.g. the name, file type, and the like) about the specific file until it starts to receive the file from the transmitting terminal. If the receiving terminal does not want to receive the file, the receiving terminal cancels reception of the file during file transmission after a Wi-Fi Direct connection has already been established between the transmitting terminal and the receiving terminal. Without any regard to the intention of the user of the receiving terminal, the conventional Wi-Fi Direct connection method establishes an unnecessary connection between the transmitting terminal and the receiving terminal.